Elizabeth Student Takes Regional Title In Poetry Competition

ELIZABETH—Dora Mighty, a senior at St. Mary of the Assumption High School in Elizabeth, captured first place in the regional Poetry Out Loud’s competition which was held on Feb. 21 in Red Bank. As regional representative Mighty will have the opportunity to compete against the six other regional winners at the state wide competition, which will be held on March 27 in Trenton. Each state winner will receive an all expense paid trip to Washington, D.C. to compete in the national championship.

The National Endowment for the Arts and the Poetry Foundation have joined together to create Poetry Out Loud, a program that encourages the nation’s youth to learn about great poetry through memorization and recitation. At the state and national competitions, each student must recite at least one poem that was written before the 20th century, and one of the other poems must be 25 lines or shorter. Mighty presented “Solitude” by Ella Wheeler Wiley, “Aunt Jemima” by Lucille Clifton and “Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou.